Introduction: who is Garen?

Hello, readers!
Garen is a tanky, high damage ADC who fits botlane's requirements perfectly, he has high base statistics, good scalings and amazing sustainability, and his main reason of existance is his capability to make his way through crowds of enemies in order to kill the most dangerous ones the enemy team has; his kit is well suited for this role, but it does need the help of some specific items, that we'll cover in this guide for sure!
Apart from his ADC role, Garen suits well the role of a regular tank aswell, thanks to his Courage and his amazing passive ability: Perseverance, although he lacks an engage, which can make him less useful than other tanks: be aware of this when picking champions, a team without engages is often a team that gets poked down too easily before teamfights start!
Garen is often Built full tank with only one or two offensive items, although this build does work, it's much less gold-efficient, and can turn into a waste of time if you don't get fed enough to realize it, plus remember a tanky champion is always less useful than a full AD one to the team in most cases!
With all this being said, let's get into the core details of this high mechanical champion.

Items for the game

Start

Start with a sightstone in pretty much all cases, if you're a lifesteal/Doran's items fan you can also start with a sightstone but the sightstone can turn into a ruby sightstone quick and get a big amount of farm/kills, so I generally prefer it over Doran's Blade.

Early Backs

Once you got sightstone you need to proceed as quick as you can building sightstone and sightstone. In theory, you can also build sightstone or sightstone but since you'll build a lot less tankiness than normal you WILL need to get to your targets faster, and sightstone will help you much more.

MidGame

As of midgame, you are going to focus on building an sightstone, since the enemies' armor won't be a problem to your phyisical damage thanks to sightstone, the extra AD this item provides, along with the crit chance included, will be amazingly nice, especially when you use your Judgment you're going to see the enemies' health bar disappear very fast! Next, you're going to want a sightstone for more armor penetration and crit chance, and also for the active: normally you DO NOT want to win a fight by autoattacking, Garen is an AD Caster, so autoattacks don't really matter that much, but the active gives you more movement speed, and you need it to fill the lack of an engage Garen suffers.

LateGame

Finish your build with a sightstone for armor and health (and slow, very nice to engage, again), and then buy sightstone. The reason why I prefer the sightstoneis that more AD lategame is nice and since you are NOT going to be your team's tank you won't need that much more magic resistance anyway.

Farming

Farming is gaining experience from opposing minion deaths. You have to be close enough to them to get this experience. It goes without saying that if you are not in your lane, you will not get experience from the top lane waves of minions, so your goal should be to remain in lane with your opponent. Likewise you can gain more experience than your opponent if you are able to be in lane when your opponent leaves. Bullying your lane is when you can push your opponent far enough away they lose CS. Garen can bully with W and still last hit with W or auto-attacks. Timing is important. More commonly you will be bullied as Garen by your opponent, so just do your best to stay close and get as much experience and CS as you can without dying. Avoid the urge to wave clear with W since damage to minions and your movement is reduced. Rather last hit with your auto-attack instead. W is far more effective against champions, especially when Garen is not slowed by nearby minions.

Early Game Target - Level Up!

In my opinion, Garen needs a full core build to be effective in team fights - that means Garen is a late game champion. Luckily, top lane is mostly left alone except for the ganks, and you can present a minimal threat if you are last hitting instead of pushing your lane. The first tower then should be your objective only when you find yourself there, avoiding all team fights early game even if your team is losing. Early game is when you are vulnerable and your priority is to win your lane. That is how you can contribute to your team most, by not dying! With the recent strategic changes to summoner's rift, you are encouraged to stay in lane longer and not team fight right away! Ward the river bush against ganks and hide in the closest bush to the tower until your minion wave draws the tower attacks. Your W works well against towers so use it all the time. Your W will help on escape to minimize the damage from a tower attack.

Mid Game Target - Split Push!

With the first tower down, you will be open to ganks and you present more of a threat. So ward and be ready for a gank at all times. You should take advantage of killing monsters in the jungle to control the location of minion battles where you will be safest. If your team abandons toplane for mid lane then move to toplane, but only if your botlane opponent leaves. Bottom lane is the best lane to push and should be the first inhibitor destroyed because it makes baron easier. If you switch lanes, remember to watch top lane and go back when your opponent returns.

Late Game Target - Team Fights!

If you have pushed top and bottom lanes you should help in team fights. Stay with your team mindful of safe lines of retreat. When the opposing team arrives, look for the ADC, find a sneaky way to get close and land your full trade combo. Then get out! You need to get in and get out quick to survive. Don't start unless you know you can make it. Let your passive start up again before you even think about getting back in. Always have a single target on every run. Do not just stand in the middle of the fight!

Mechanics

As we all know garen has the most mechanics in the game. But a lot of bronzes players think he is easy to play. His ult can be used to become invulnerable to spells if timed correctly . It can also be used to place in front of yourself and others , juke people and do dmg. His E requires you to make decisions - using it removes the slow passive. His normal passive is insanely hard to master. Finally, his w is awesome for juking and his W is also not the easiest to use to perfection due to the time it takes for him to activate. (I am sure I am still missing a lot of cool tricks, but you get the point) Vayne, Lee and Nidalee is ezpz for him. If you dont believe me here is a vid to show you how hard it is to play garen.

Summary

So that's it! I hope you'll get to have an amazing experience with Garen thanks to a certain extent to this guide and the tips it offers! Make sure to give me suggestions on how to improve the guide, I'll follow them as good as I can in the future!
A vote would be very nice, and comments are also appreciated 'cause feedback is the way to know how this guide is doing and how much improvement it requires!
GG

League of Legends is a team based, real time strategy game set in a mythical world of swords & magic where epic battles decide the fate of mystical nations. Game players take on the role of a Summoner who conjures and controls champions to fight for them at the Institute of War. During game play champions gain experience and items to enhance their skills and abilities. How players develop and play their champions can be the difference between a crushing defeat or a glorious victory!